This application is based upon and claims the benefit of priority from the prior Japanese Patent Application No. 2001-364812, filed Nov. 29, 2001, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for recording a content containing a watermark.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, a recording apparatus for receiving a digital content through, e.g., satellite broadcast and recording it on an optical disk has been researched and developed. A watermark is embedded in the digital content to protect the copyright.
Techniques related to watermarks are disclosed in Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication Nos. 2001-60340, 2000-48481, and 2000-49616. However, the watermarks disclosed in these prior arts cannot cope with careless content copy by users and cannot sufficiently protect copyrights.
More specifically, general users can see no watermarks embedded in contents as signals. For this reason, if users are going to carelessly copy contents with watermarks embedded, they cannot know the reason why copy is impossible. In addition, watermarks embedded in contents provided from broadcast stations cannot sufficiently protect copyrights.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus for recording a content containing a watermark, which are suitable for copyright protection.
In order to solve the above problems and achieve the above object, a method and apparatus for recording a watermark containing a watermark according to an embodiment of the present invention have the following arrangement.
(1) According to the embodiment of the present invention, there is provided an apparatus for recording a content containing a watermark, comprising a generation section configured to embed a new watermark (WM2) in an original content containing an original watermark (WM1) to generate a new content, and a recording section configured to record the new content.
(2) According to the embodiment of the present invention, there is provided a recording method of recording a content containing a watermark, comprising embedding a new watermark (WM2) in an original content containing an original watermark (WM1) to generate a new content, and recording the new content.
Additional objects and advantages of the present invention will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the present invention. The objects and advantages of the invention may be realized and obtained by means of the instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out hereinafter.